El Al Disaster Averted in London

El-Al pilots realize just in time that their landing gear not deployed; incident under investigation.

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Yedidia Ben-Or, 23/04/14 12:08

El Al airplanes

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A tragedy was narrowly averted Tuesday, after the pilots of an El-Al Boeing 737 forgot to drop their landing gear before landing at London's Heathrow airport, according to Channel 10.

The pilots were supposed to deploy the landing gear about six miles before reaching their destination, according to the report, and conduct tests to make sure the wheels would fully deploy.

But the checks were allegedly not made before attempting to land - in an incident that almost ended in tragedy.

About 800 feet above the landing strip, landing gear alarms began sounding in the cockpit - alerting the pilots to their mistake. They quickly performed a go-around to drop the landing gear; passengers were not notified of the mistake.

El Al responded to the report Tuesday. "The incident is under investigation, in coordination with the Chief Air Crash Investigator of the Ministry of Transport," it said in a statement.